Michael Duke: Running The World’s Largest Retail Store

Michael Duke is the president and CEO of Wal-mart, the world’s largest retail store chain. It is so huge that its performance is a bell weather for the U.S. economy. To be able to head such a large organization means Duke comes with exceptional skills. He certainly does and proven in his work performance.

Unlike other CEOs Duke did not graduate from an ivy league school or hold an MBA degree. He does have an industrial engineering degree from Georgia Tech which he has applied quite successfully in his professional career.

According to Duke his career path was guided by the advice he got from a high school physics teacher who told him to go to Georgia Tech and get an industrial engineering degree. His teacher also advised him not to get into the manufacturing industry but the service industry since that’s where the future lay.  Considering it was 1967 at that time it was quite a forward looking advice.

He did follow the advice and after getting his college degree worked for Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta.  In his early years he learned to manage stores and after 10 year moved on to logistics. Rich’s later became Federated and May Department Stores. He worked for that company for 23 years.

He was hired by Wal-Mart in 1995 to handle the company’s logistics. Being such an enormous company logistics is an integral component of what defines Wal-Mart as an efficient and successful company. Duke went about and made further improvements to the logistics component.

In 2005 he was appointed vice chairman and led Wal-Mart International.  With Duke’s guidance the international business became a fast growing segment of Wal-Mart with 3,500 stores and 680,000 associates in 15 markets outside of the contiguous U.S.  This segment of Wal-Mart is a behemoth in its own right having annual sales of almost $100 billion in 2008 when Duke was heading it.

In February 2009 he finally got the top post of president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.  Perhaps Duke’s high school physics teacher never imagined how far and high his accomplishment would be.

Gregg W. Steinhafel: Overcoming Challenges

Becoming the CEO of a company is a big enough challenge in itself. You are now responsible for guiding the company to future growth and prosperity.  It is even more challenging when your predecessor had made huge accomplishments that basically made the company the success that it has become.

This was the situation facing Gregg Steinhafel when he became the CEO of Target the multi-billion discount retail giant which operates in 49 states and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His predecessor was largely responsible for growing the company to its prominent position in the retail market.  Yet Steinhafel immediately faced huge challenges when he was promoted to the position in May 2008.

The U.S. economy was faltering and sales were dropping. The company was known for its “Expect More, Pay Less” slogan. They had been putting more emphasis on the “Expect More” part of the message. Target is identified with having taken the consumer out of shopping boredom by offering designer products and a bit of upscale atmosphere as compared to the lowest price approach of Wal-Mart. It was able to differentiate itself even though it was a discount retailer offering low prices.

During crisis time however this strategy was becoming a liability since people were now more focused on low prices. This was especially true to the fortyish moms that had been Target’s main customers.  Given overwhelming data Steinhafel made the crucial decision to change the message emphasizing low prices without ending up looking like a Wal-Mart copycat.

After some time and much hard work the company looks to have pulled it off with sales picking up. Target made new forays in the fresh food segment which has helped to increase overall sales.  Steinhafel was able to execute all this even while a major stockholder who was disgruntled when stock prices were going down was threatening a boardroom shakeup in 2009.  Steinhafel who was appointed board chairman in January 2009 managed to weather the storm and stockholders voted in favor of the current directors.

Target also had a misstep when a civic initiative it supported ended up being as support for an anti-gay politician which dismayed the gay community. Steinhafel managed to repair the company’s relationship with the gay community.

Steinhafel was able to overcome major challenges proving his true worth as a leader.